Saturday, February 18, 2006

Pain is temporary, pride is forever

Okay, cheesy title yes, but i really think it's relevant right now in many ways. I just watched the "dream team" Canadian men's hockey team lose 2-0 to Switzerland, which would never have happened four years ago - actually this is the first time we've ever lost to them at all. It was a good wake-up call for them, considering they definitely have not been playing like a team or very well at all. So online I go, to read the many comments posted on tsn.ca about the game. It's always entertaining to me to see what other people are thinking about the various games that are happening. Some people sound intelligent, others ridiculous, and still others are just plain mad. Many of the Canadians posting were freaking out because we lost a game - which I find funny, because I think it's just the wake-up call this team needs. Our world jr team won this year because they played like a team, beating everybody, including an American "dream team"... interesting to be on this side of the fence...While reading all of the comments about the coaching, the reffing (which was in fact terrible for both sides), the goal(S) that weren't, and the terrible play by some members of Team Canada (particularly Bertuzzi, who got caught standing in the crease and cost us a goal), the medal award ceremony came on for the men's skeleton. Now, I'm not going to claim that I even knew what the heck this was, but after seeing the replay, I know that it's some kind of luge event. Hurtling 100 km and hour on a sled over a very hard looking icy track doesn't look easy to me, and anybody brave enough to try to do this as fast as possible sure has my respect.This isn't about the crazy "skeleton" racers. Not really. What I saw was my country's flag rising and listening to the two medalists (we got gold and silver in the event) stand together on the gold podium, singing the national anthem. It was a pretty nice wake-up call. The silver medalist didn't look upset about being second.The commentators were talking about the struggles that the Canadians had been having in order to get to where they were. One of them said "pain is temporary, but pride is forever".Maybe this hockey fan needs to rethink things a bit. No matter what sport you're playing, you do WIN silver- it's not always about losing gold. It's an accomplishment that I'll be proud of for this country, if that does happen.

Go Team Canada - hopefully there is another looney buried in the ice over there...

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About Me

When I was in high school, I imagined that at 29 I'd be married with a couple of kids, working in my career job, and living in a house. I'm engaged, have just climbed onto the bottom rung of the long ladder in my teaching career, have two cats and live in an apartment. Sometimes things take a little longer than we expect...